


Seventeen-Years-Old

by Sintari (OriginalSintari)



Series: Neji and Hinata: Maybe in Another Life [8]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 11:06:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18548524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalSintari/pseuds/Sintari
Summary: Neji is seventeen. Hinata grows old.





	Seventeen-Years-Old

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Семнадцатилетний](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19416943) by [Furimmer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Furimmer/pseuds/Furimmer)



> I've missed these two and felt like dashing off a little something about them.

He’s three-years-old and while everybody tells him his eyes are special, he can’t seem to take them off his cousin Hinata, who opens and closes her small, sticky hand at him from across the room. When she approaches, he – not knowing any better yet – stretches his hand out to take hers.

She’s two-years-old and she hides her face in her mother’s kimono. 

()()()()()

He’s four-years-old and his forehead hurts. Then everything hurts.

She’s three-years-old and she watches as her father kneels in front of her cousin Neji and lays across his two small hands the hitai-ate that once covered her uncle Hizashi’s cursed seal. 

()()()()()

He’s thirteen-years-old and now he’s finally going to show them all. 

She’s twelve-years-old and, even when he bares his teeth in a snarl as he finishes their battle, all she sees is the four-year-old boy who never took his solemn eyes off the gravediggers until the propped their shovels on their shoulders and walked away.

()()()()()

He’s fourteen-years-old and he’s not angry at her anymore.

She’s thirteen-years-old and she doesn’t hide her face when their eyes meet.

()()()()()

He’s fourteen-years-old and, after the arrow pierces his shoulder, he lies back against the bark of a black pine and allows himself to think of her. Later when he wakes in the hospital, Kidomaru’s curse rings in his ears.

She’s thirteen-years-old and, to her, Uzumaki Naruto shines brighter than the sun. She clutches both fists until her fingernails cut half-moons into her palm and swears that she’ll love him forever.

()()()()()

He’s fifteen-years-old and is clutching the package of cinnamon rolls – her favorite – so tightly that he smashes one of the dozen, and who is he to present someone like her with an imperfect thing? They’ll make a treat for the birds that perch along the Nakano river bridge.

She’s fourteen-years-old and swears her empty-handed cousin to secrecy before showing him the cheap silver charm Naruto bought her for her birthday. He shows no emotion, but then he’s always been hard to read.

()()()()()

He’s sixteen-years-old and he starts to tell her. 

She’s fifteen-years-old and she stops him with one finger to his lips. Maybe he’s not so hard to read after all.

()()()()()

He’s seventeen-years-old and she is all he ever wanted. He takes the hit to his back so he can look at her one last time before he dies. 

She’s sixteen-years-old and a true partisan. She won’t fully comprehend until years later what they traded that day.

()()()()()

He’s seventeen-years-old and white lilies adorn his grave. 

She’s nineteen-years-old and already three years older than her mother was on her wedding day. But, Hinata tells herself, her mother married for duty; Hinata’s marriage is for love.

()()()()()

He’s seventeen-years-old. 

She’s twenty-seven-years-old and she can count on one hand the number of nights the Hokage has been home over the past month. 

()()()()()

He’s seventeen-years-old. 

She’s thirty-years-old today and jokes to Sakura that she feels more like a hundred. Instead of laughing, Sakura squeezes her hand, and she realizes that maybe it hadn’t sounded much like a joke at all. 

()()()()()

He’s seventeen-years-old. 

She’s thirty-nine-years-old and has stopped dyeing the gray streaks in her hair. Her children are both Jounin now, and all the hair dye in the Leaf Country couldn’t keep up. 

()()()()()

He’s seventeen-years-old. 

She’s fifty-years-old and she doesn’t have to see Hanabi’s medical chart to know its cancer, and there’s not much time left. 

()()()()()

He’s seventeen-years-old. 

She’s fifty-one-years-old and only now realizes exactly what you lose when everyone who knew you in your girlhood has died. 

()()()()()

He’s seventeen-years-old.

She’s seventy-four-years-old and a widow. She thinks about how sometimes you pay for a choice you make when you’re fifteen for the rest of your whole goddamn life.

()()()()()

He’s seventeen-years-old. 

She’s ninety-one-years-old and her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren surround her bedside. She is, if not happy, content. 

()()()()()

He’s seventeen-years-old and has been for years. And when she appears at the top of the hill, just like when he was three-years-old and she was two, he stretches his hand out for what he wants.

She’s sixteen-years-old. And this time she doesn’t hesitate.

**Author's Note:**

> Neji deserved better. Comments and kudos are always appreciated.


End file.
